Building your structure

Open Cost Centers with a costing selected, and use Add New to build the tree.

The fields

Field	What it does
Code	Your cost code. Sorts the list and appears on reports and orders.
Name	What the cost center is called.
Parent	Which center this sits under. Blank makes it top level.
Sorting Index	Position among its siblings, when you do not want code order.
Note	Anything you want to record about scope or inclusions.

Filter Structure… and Filter WBS… narrow a long tree while you work, and Keep this box open lets you add several in a row without the dialog closing each time — worth ticking when you are setting up a structure from scratch.

Moving things around

Drag a cost center onto another one to move it underneath it. It takes anything below it with it, and goes to the end of its new branch.

• While you drag, the cost center under the pointer lights up if it can take it, or turns pink with the reason if it can’t — too deep, or inside itself — so you know before you let go.
• A strip appears at the top of the tree: drop there to move it to the top level.
• Hold it over a closed branch for a moment and the branch opens, so you can reach a place deep in the tree without letting go.

Changing Parent on the cost center itself does the same thing, and is easier when the two are far apart in a long tree. The Parent box is searchable — type part of a name or code — and greys out the places the cost center can’t go, with the reason beside each.

Three levels, and no deeper

A cost center can have children, and those children can have children — but no further. If a move would make a fourth level, SmarteBuild refuses it and tells you why. Dragging, editing the Parent, and importing from Excel all apply the same rule, in both cost center and price list structures.

Three levels is nearly always enough. Where you want a fourth, an extra digit in the code usually reads better anyway: 310 Slab, 311 Slab — excavation.

Finding your way around a long tree

• Find by name or code filters as you type and highlights the matches. Whatever a match sits under is shown greyed, so you can see where it lives. Enter jumps to the first match.
• The tree remembers which branches you opened and closed — through saves, drags, refreshes, and closing the window. Only the branch of whatever you just saved or moved opens, so you can see the result. The expand-all and collapse-all buttons beside the search box reset it.
• The keyboard works too: the arrow keys move around (right opens a branch, left closes it or goes up a level), Enter edits, Delete deletes, Insert adds a cost center beside the selected one and Shift+Insert adds one inside it.

Coding

Codes do most of the organising. A numeric scheme with room to grow is the usual approach:

100  Preliminaries
200  Site works
300  Concrete
310    Slab
320    Driveway and paths
400  Framing
500  Roofing
600  External cladding
700  Windows and doors
800  Services
810    Plumbing
820    Electrical
830    HVAC
900  Internal linings
1000 Fixing and joinery
1100 Wet areas
1200 Painting
1300 Floor coverings
1400 External works
1500 Final clean and handover

Leaving gaps is the whole point. Coding trades 100 apart means you can add 330 Retaining walls in three years without renumbering anything, and the order still comes out right.

Match your accounting codes if you can

If your accounting package already has a chart of accounts for job costs, use the same codes here. Coding expenses becomes mechanical, and your two systems agree without anyone reconciling them.

Letting SmarteBuild number them

Settings…, on the ⋮ menu beside the toolbar, controls the code and index SmarteBuild suggests when you add a cost center:

Setting	What it does
Sorting index increments	The gap it leaves between one center and the next. 10 gives you 10, 20, 30 — room to slot something in later without renumbering.
Link index and code	Fills the Code box with the sorting index, instead of leaving it blank for you to type — and keeps it matching if you change the index or pick a different parent.
Digits in a generated code	Pads that code, so 10 becomes 010 at three digits. Only used with Link index and code.

These are saved against your login, so they carry across every structure you open. Whatever it suggests is only a starting point — overtype either box before saving.

Ordering

Centers sort by code by default. Sorting Index overrides that when you want a different order among siblings — useful if your codes came from an accounting system whose numbering does not run in build sequence.

Ordering the tree in build sequence rather than alphabetically is worth doing. An estimate that reads in the order the job happens is far easier to check for things you have missed, because a gap shows up as a stage that is not there.

Worked example: the Hendricks extension

A rear extension does not need the full structure. Trimmed to what the job actually has:

Code	Name	Parent
100	Preliminaries	—
200	Site works	—
300	Concrete	—
310	Slab	Concrete
400	Framing	—
500	Roofing	—
600	External cladding	—
700	Windows and doors	—
810	Plumbing	Services
820	Electrical	Services
900	Internal linings	—
1000	Fixing and joinery	—
1200	Painting	—
1500	Final clean	—

Starting from your standard template and deleting what does not apply is faster than building this from nothing, and it keeps the codes consistent with your other jobs.

Group Items

Group Items collects the items under a center for bulk handling — useful when reorganising a bill that has grown untidily. See Bulk operations.

Changing the structure later

You can add, rename and re-parent cost centers at any time, and the items under them follow.

The one thing to be careful about is deleting a center that is in use. Before it deletes anything, SmarteBuild lists everything that points at it and what will happen to each:

• cost centers underneath move up to the top level — they are not deleted
• estimate items under it are unfiled, and drop out of the estimate until you file them under another cost center
• invoice lines against it are deleted — shown in pink so you do not miss it
• a center used by a tender, a WBS note or a to-do can’t be deleted until those are cleared, and the dialog says which

Move the items first where you can — a bill with orphaned items is harder to untangle than it looks. Show Orphan Items in the BOQ finds any that have ended up without a home. The delete itself happens all at once: if anything goes wrong part way, nothing is changed.